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Nirmala Sitharaman is Among the 100 Most Powerful Women in India

Nirmala Sitharaman is Among the 100 Most Powerful Women in India

Highlights:

The Indian Government newly appointed Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman has been named in the ‘100 Most Influential in UK-India Relations: Celebrating Women’ list, which credited the BJP leader among one of India’s most “powerful women” who played a “pivotal” role in the bilateral relationship.

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman amongst the 100 Most Powerful Women in India and UK

The 2019 UK-India Week began a running start with the UK Parliament celebrating the first-ever India Day. To mark 'India Day' in the Houses of Parliament in London the, UK Home Secretary, released the '100 most Influential in UK-India Relations: Celebrating Women' list. The list includes The Indian Government’s newly appointed Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman.

The Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman is amongst the 100 most influential women, who are driving the UK-India relationship forward alongside one of Britain's senior-most cabinet ministers Penny Mordaunt.

It credited the Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, also the Minister of Corporate Affairs, as one of India's most "powerful women" playing a key part in the bilateral relationship, who was India’s former defence minister and now appointed as the finance minister.

“In her previous career worked in UK and studied at the London School of Economics (LSE) , Nirmala is familiar with the UK more so than probably all her other colleagues, making her a pivotal sounding board on all things UK-India”, stated on notes the citation on Nirmala, who is the first woman to hold the finance portfolio in the union government.

Released by UK-based media house India Inc, the power list stated that: “Nirmala Sitharaman is arguably one of India’s most powerful women, having recently been appointed the country’s Finance Minister, the first woman to hold this post, except the brief stint by Indira Gandhi when she was the Prime Minister. Formerly, she was India’s Defence Minister, also being the first woman in that position.

“With India emerging as the world's largest importer of defence products, and a significant strategic partner for the UK, Penny plays a crucial role in the UK-India relationship”, said by Penny Mordaunt, who is the Britain's Secretary of State for Defence, the other senior politician in the list who is also credited as the first woman to be assigned the role in the UK Cabinet.

The list also includes names from the Indian-origin parliamentarians in the UK like Priti Patel and Baroness Sandy Verma, filmmaker Gurinder Chadha, Indian law firm chiefs Zia Mody and Pallavi S Shroff, Apollo Hospitals' managing director Suneeta Reddy and Nasscom President Debjani Ghosh.

The unveiling of the list likewise marked the start of UK-India Week in Britain, which would consist of a series of sessions on trade and investment as well as closer cooperation amid the UK and India through the course of the week.

This list also highlights the huge potential for the future of the UK and India as they keep on to forge on together as two great countries. From business to politics, and art and literacy, women are continuing to lead in by bringing together this bold partnership through collaboration and relationships.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his party Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) have claimed a landslide victory in the 17th Lok Sabha 2019 elections and has won a majority of 352 seats of the 543 seats in parliament. Narendra Modi was sworn in as the Prime Minister for the 2nd term, and the allocation of ministry to the sworn in members of the Council of Ministers showed a juggle in the ministries in the new government.

Nirmala Sitharaman, who served as the full-time Defence Minister of India in the Narendra Modi government from September 2017 to May 2019, has been appointed as the new finance minister in this 2nd term of the Modi Government. The Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman held her first GST Council meeting on 21st June 2019. Nirmala Sitharaman has been appointed as the new finance minister in this 2nd term of the Modi Government and stepped into the shoes of the former Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley who opted out of the ministerial position in the new government on health grounds.

It was during her tenure that various progressive steps were taken which resulted in women finally ascending towards higher levels in the defence hierarchy. Indian army opened up a permanent commission for women; until March 2019 women were only enlisted for short service commission. Women were additionally included in the chosen military officers who are posted in other countries, as a part of diplomatic and military operations.

Also, Nirmala Sitharaman is amongst the six women who were given a spot in Prime Minister Modi’s Council of Ministers, a number which was criticized as dismal by many. Presently, Sitharaman, 59, faces the task of creating a union budget which would pull a sagging economy up by its bootstraps. Nirmala Sitharaman is going to present her first Union Budget on 5th July 2019.

Author:

eStartIndia Team



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